u/Powerful_Birthday_71

Hello all,

I’m coming from SolidWorks and trying to learn NX. I’m looking for succinct tutorials or worked examples that show realistic part-building workflows for surfacing, rather than isolated feature demos.

Using SolidWorks terminology, I’m especially interested in things like:

• Sketches and feature-based modelling basics to get started
• Referencing earlier sketches or geometry with contunued association
• Circular body/feature patterns and pattern control
• Feature tree/history manipulation
• Temporary multibody workflows
• Building up solids, cutting away regions, replacing/reworking areas with surfaces, then sewing/knitting back to a solid

A lot of the videos I’ve found so far demonstrate individual features in idealised examples, but not much feature interaction, recovery, or rework like when associativity can break down. but even more basically when I start modelling real parts, I quickly hit situations where in SolidWorks I’d use a familiar sequence of steps, but in NX I don’t yet know the equivalent workflow, or where the mental model differs.

Does anyone know good NX tutorials, channels, example files, or documentation paths that teach this kind of practical modelling flow, where some back and forth between sketches, bodies, and surfaces is required to get things working?

Bonus points if it shows how things can fail or need to be revised. So many tutorials are made to have everything work first time, which I find unrealistic in practice, especially once surfacing or more complex feature interaction is involved.

Basically: Andrew Jackson tutorials*, but for NX instead of SolidWorks.

(*100% recommended for SolidWorks.)

Image mostly for clicks, but it does show where I’m at: I can get basic solids going, and it’s easy enough to create a Studio Surface in isolation. The part I’m struggling with is getting the surrounding geometry set up correctly so there’s actually somewhere useful to put that surface. I hit a wall of “errr… hmmmm, ummmm” 🤷

Hello all,

Design engineer here. I recently heard back from the CNC supplier we use that a batch of parts I designed had a nonconformance on a 5-hole bolt pattern.

The holes were specified as Ø10.00–10.10, but some parts measured Ø10.20-10.25 instead. The supplier confirmed that the hole positions / BCD were still within tolerance.

For this application, it is actually acceptable if the hole diameters are within Ø10.00–10.30 and the max/min hole diameter variation on each part does not exceed 0.10mm.

For future runs, I’d like to allow that extra clearance, but still prevent one part having a mix of, say, Ø10.00 and Ø10.30 holes in the same bolt pattern.

My current thought is something like:

5X Ø10.00 +0.30 / -0.00 THRU
POSITION ⌀0.10 | A

ACTUAL DIAMETER VARIATION BETWEEN THE 5 BOLT HOLES ON EACH PART MUST NOT EXCEED 0.10mm.

Does this communicate the intent clearly to machinists / inspectors, or is there a better/proper way to control the within-pattern hole size variation without using that note? Would this be handled with stacked controls, or is the note the clearest option?

TL;DR: 9-point correction isn’t fixing non-linear scaling on my F420 lens. I’ve reached the 5×5 marking stage in EzCad2's CorFile.exe, but can’t find what comes next. Does EzCad2 actually support this?

**
I have a new F420 lens here, and 9 point (3×3) calibrations aren't working out for me, as they aren't fully correcting non-linear error across the field. Non-linear in that if I correct scale for, say, 100 mm, then at 250 mm it'll be too big; if I then scale to be exact at 250 mm, 100 mm is now too small.

I've been very precise setting focus by iterating and minimising the mean squared error across different projected sizes, and it turns out those results are really close to other focusing methods anyway. But the non-linear nature of the error still exists.

I've heard about multi-point correction in EzCad, but seem to have hit a dead end in the GUI. I've done the 9-point values, saved a .cor file, drawn the squares, then marked the points for a 5×5 field.

Ok, what next??? Literally stumped as to what to do next.

Reading the EzCad3 manual, I see extra functionality where the offsets from these markers can be added. But Corfile.exe from EzCad won't recognise either of my EzCad2 control cards.

The EzCad2 manual doesn't cover the same topics as the EzCad3 manual. Nor do any of the multiple YouTube videos on the topic. It's like these buttons exist, but we must not speak of them lol.

Did they just stop development with EzCad2 here? Or??